Thursday, September 20, 2012

Art As Worship #2

This act, art as worship has transformed my interest in the daily “devotions.” I’ve never been very good at that part, but this is new, this new ritual. I can’t wait to discover the words that will leap off the page or out of song and into my heart. And these things stay with me for the whole day, it becomes part of my daily soundtrack.

“One of my favorite Celtic ideas is the concept of thin places. A thin place, according to the Celtic mystics, is a place where the boundary between the natural world and the supernatural one is more permeable, thinner, if you will.

Sometimes they’re physical places. There are places all over Ireland where people have said, if you stand here, if you face this direction, if you hike to the top of that ridge at just the right time, that’s a thin place, a place where the passage between heaven and earth is short one, a place where God’s presence is almost palpable….

Thin places: places where the boundary between the divine world and the human world become almost nonexistent, and the two, divine and human, can for a moment, dance together uninterrupted. Some are physical and some aren’t places at all, but states of being or circumstances or seasons.

When we find a thin place, anything, anywhere, we should live differently in the face of it, because if we don’t, we miss some of the best moments that life with God has to offer us. These thin places are gifts, treasures, and they worth changing our lives for.”

I think whatever our act of daily time with God is, it has to be like this. Done out of desire and not guilt, because I don’t believe in guilt of any kind, no, none at all, but I do believe in finding that place where you can meet God. The ocean. Art. Sunrise. The blank page. Quiet hours of holding sick babies in your arms. The stillness of evening. That’s where I meet God and when I show up, He is there.

This art as worship is something I look forward to, because I know it’s more than doodles on a page, it’s when I meet with the divine God and it transforms me. It’s never about fitting in time or crossing of an item off a list. It’s penetrating the heavens. It’s worship.

What are you thin places? What is your act of worship?

(All images are here and you are welcome to use them as desktop/screensaver or pass them on to a friend.)